So what *is* somatic hypnosis—and how does it work?
“We are not thinking machines that feel. We are feeling machines that think.”
- Antonio Damasio
One of my teachers, Melissa Tiers of the Integrative Hypnosis Institute, gives the simplest definition of hypnosis I’ve heard:
Hypnosis is a heightened state of suggestibility. It occurs when one’s focus is narrowed, and the ‘critical faculty’ is down.
That last bit just means that your mind’s rational filter can be slipped past, like an unlocked gate to a warehouse of precious gems.
This matters because your unconscious mind governs how you experience life—from the types of people you attract, to the frustrations you routinely face.
In a state of hypnosis, we can plant suggestions that reshape your reality.
When you think about it, we’re in a state of suggestibility quite often. By Melissa’s definition, watching TV is a form of hypnosis. Scrolling social media is hypnosis. Shamanism is hypnosis!
I’d also assert that my other great love, somatic healing, is hypnotic in nature.
I’ve been in many healing containers where we worked with the body to rewire trauma, and the facilitators would suggest, for example, that the person was working through a mother wound.
You may not be able to objectively prove that someone has released the pain of being ignored by mom when they were six…
But the way energy and emotion moves through them in that state of suggestibility, and the freedom they experience on the other side, is proof enough to me.
As for me? I personally define hypnosis as a means of using your natural neuroplasticity to change the way you think, feel and act.
Many healing practices are, thereby, hypnotic in nature.
Working with your unconscious gives you power.
Some say that your unconscious mind constitutes 95% of your brain’s activity. Sounds good, but that’s not a verified measure.
It is known, however, that while your conscious mind can process 10-60 bits of information per second… your unconscious mind can process MILLIIONS or BILLIONS of bits per second.
That’s got to be worth something, right?
Your unconscious is considered to be responsible for the autonomic functions of your body—as well as your habits, feelings and a good portion of your decision-making.
Psychology is rich with theories as to how this affects your experience of life.
Sigmund Freud spoke of repetition compulsion, or the tendency of a person to repeat their past trauma in an unconscious effort to master something unresolved.
Carl Jung famously said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will control your life and you will call it fate.”
Harville Hendrix and other proponents of attachment theory believe that we unwittingly choose partners who will mimic our childhood trauma so that we can heal.
The list goes on, but enough theory. Let me tell you a story.
How the unconscious learns and repeats its learnings
One of the most famous patients in neuroscience was an amnesiac known as H.M.
After a surgery to treat epilepsy—in which doctors removed a piece of his hippocampus 😯—he lost the ability to form new memories. His life became very 50 First Dates, in that he could do the same jigsaw puzzle day after day without getting bored, because he’d forget doing it.
His unconscious mind, however, still had the ability to learn.
When researchers gave him the awkward task of tracing a star while looking at its reflection in a mirror, something incredible happened.
H.M. couldn’t *consciously* remember tracing the star on subsequent attempts.
But he got better at tracing it on every time. His hand grew steadier, and his tracing more precise.
This is the power we’re working with in hypnosis: the learning your unconscious mind retains.
And your unconscious doesn’t just learn tasks like tracing stars.
Your unconscious mind learns how the world works. It learns what love feels like. It learns what to expect from other people. It learns whether or not it’s safe to be seen.
When you repeat the same self-sabotaging behaviors at work—’forgetting’ critical tasks, or putting things off until the last minute…
Or you enter into the same unsatisfying relationship with a different person…
That’s not a personal failing. It’s your unconscious mind repeating what it knows.
Experts agree: we gravitate toward people and experiences that match our unconscious expectations and learnings, or beliefs.
Why use hypnosis?
Simple. Use hypnosis because you want to be happy, healthy and live a good life.
Use hypnosis to rewire your unconscious mind to expect experiences and interactions that lead to health and happiness.
Specifically, you might use hypnosis when you’re struggling to…
Overcome procrastination. You know what you need to do, but you put it off.
Change a bad habit, e.g. because willpower alone isn’t helping you to quit vaping.
Get into a new habit, like meditation or writing, by changing how you feel about something that previously may have caused pressure or disappointment.
Overcome hidden, unconscious fears that lead to self-sabotage. For example, you might unconsciously fear scaling your team so you don’t risk hurting more people in layoffs,.
Accelerate your achievement of a goal, by getting your beliefs and identity on board with the person you need to be in order to achieve something.
Gain insight into a challenge. Your unconscious mind usually has a simple answer to questions that your conscious mind can spin on in confusion for weeks.
Effectively, hypnosis helps you to become congruent with your goals.
Often when say we want something, our unconscious mind isn’t sold that it’s safe, or that it’s for us.
For example, I oncer helped a client through a hidden fear of becoming wealthy. Consciously, she wanted to be a millionaire running multiple companies.
Unconsciously, she feared she’d be ostracized from her family if this were the case. From a young age, she’d had it impressed upon her that rich people were evil.
Once we worked through this fear using somatic hypnosis, she was able to apply herself fully to her business. She brought more focus, took more action and did so without fear or doubt.
When all of you is onboard with change—your conscious and your unconscious alike—then everything gets easier.
Not effortless, and not less rewarding.
But if previously you’d been driving with the handbrake on, hypnosis takes it off.
It preserves the health of your nervous system (more below), and gives you way better fuel efficiency.
HYPNOSIS CHANGES YOUR BRAIN
Just to validate this with research, Dr. David Spiegel has led fMRI studies at Stanford that proved the brain’s critical faculty (‘dorsal anterior cingulate’) does indeed quiet down in hypnosis.
Meanwhile, connections between decision-making and body-awareness centers strengthen.
This allows for underlying emotional patterns and unconscious beliefs to be accessed and influenced without resistance.
During hypnosis, we can also take advantage of something called ‘memory reconsolidation.’
According to a study by Bruce Ecker, when a core belief or memory is activated and then paired with a new, contradictory experience in a safe setting, the original pattern can be permanently rewritten.
In other words, we can change your brain, your unconscious expectations of reality and your experience of life—through hypnosis.
What is somatic hypnosis, specifically?
Firstly, somatic healing is a means of partnering with your nervous system to change your instinctual responses to threats, whether real or perceived.
(An email from your temperamental boss kind of is the modern day tiger to outrun.)
This looks like actively feeling emotions and energy in your body in order to process them.
Somatic hypnosis is hypnosis that respects the way your unconscious mind operates in your body via your nervous system.
I integrate somatic healing into my hypnosis practice for two reasons:
It alters your nervous system and increases your ability to withstand stress and difficult emotion.
It builds your tolerance for being in your body—aka out of the thinking mind and in the present.
It’s out-of-scope for this article, but the highest performance one can achieve is a function of their presence—not their effort.
Anyway, whereas the conscious mind tends to worry or over-complicate our challenges, the unconscious mind is a deep well of resource, truth and clarity.
A healthy nervous system is the biological foundation that allows us to execute on its direction.
(Which we are best poised to access through practices like hypnosis. See how this comes together?)
Even better, when you have a healthy nervous system and are *capable* of feeling present, you’re also capable of feeling a sense of sufficiency.
You are capable of doing, being and having enough—because ‘enough’ is a feeling.
This equips you to participate in building an “Economy of Enough,” where we collectively prioritize sufficiency in business, put relationships over transactions and lead with integrity.
How does a session work?
When I work with a new client for the first time, we’ll focus on the issues showing up in your life.
Rather than putting you into a state of deep trance, I’ll lean primarily on conversational hypnosis to completely reset how you’re thinking and feeling about your biggest challenges.
In one session, you can get unblock unconscious barriers to success and gain a huge amount of clarity and momentum.
If you’ve been stuck in your progress towards a goal—so stuck that all you can focus on is the lack of it—Achievement Rehab is designed to help.
Book into Achievement Rehab to shift the unconscious beliefs that have you stuck, and reset your nervous system for momentum.
Your unconscious mind is already shaping your results. Imagine what’s possible when it’s working with you rather than as a block.